Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year

I quit making resolutions a long time ago, but I will say that 2009 is off to an excellent start as far as I am concerned. Yesterday, I modified the general ed assessment plan for our intro cultural course. This took virtually all day--not the two hours and not-a-minute more that I so cavalierly predicted/planned in my last post--but hours, hours, hours!!!!). It just makes me furious to think about it *& #)($*)#@(%&.....for this, I got a Ph.D.???? But today, except for minor edits and a few hilarious typo corrections, I consider myself to be more or less done. For the next 5 semesters, this is it! It can be modified by my colleagues before we put it into play (if they choose to take the time), but it'll pass muster with the assessment police as it now stands. In some ways, it is less work to operationalize this plan than the last one. But I still hate the ENTIRE concept. I'll never be an assessment evangelical. Ever.

Now on to the good stuff: I went into the museum today to work with CLE (my workstudy student) and WOW, did we get stuff done!! 1) refrigerator cleaned out of just-disgusting stuff from last semester, including a half-drunk bottle of $2-buck-chuck that was hiding in the crisper--left over from an opening at least two semesters ago. 2) all the southwestern ceramics on permanent loan from the SIM has been moved down from the loft to be photographed and packed for deaccessioning (yes--my many predecessors loved to accession and catalog into OUR collections--all the permanent loans--oy vey--we've been storing this crap for free for 40+ years). 3) Numerous ancient pasteboard boxes (into which various items in our collection were packed for moving into the "new" building more than 17 years ago) now fully unpacked, removed from repository loft and tossed into the recycling dumpsters out back. (I suspect that my immediate predecessor had an out-of-sight, out-0f-mind mentality when it came to artifacts in the lofts.) 4) African artifacts (drum, female figure, and headrest) moved back up to loft in prop room. Coir raincoat and box of miscellaneous rugs, tapa, etc. returned to repository loft. *Honestly,* you won't recognize the lab when next you go in. And you won't get food-poisoning from the fridge either.

Also in the category of "things over which I've procrastinated too long," this morning I finally excavated the template for one of the museum website components and handed it off to CLE so she can help to format some of the 2-year backlog I need to catch up on. AND, I vacuumed out my Prius. It looks so nice, and nearly-new.

And now I am either going to go to a movie, or work on the syllabus I didn't get to yesterday. Considering TH is plugged into BOTH his bass and the computer, I suspect it will be the latter.

3 comments:

I can really recommend "Frost/Nixon" - the B and EG and I went the other night and DAMN. Amazing, amazing performances. I've always loved Frank Langella (since "Dracula") and wished he had the fame and $ he deserved. Maybe now?

Oh, that sounds like a good choice. And yes, we should do something fun before the insanity of the new semester starts. Let's give that some serious thought. There's a tequila bar/restaurant downtown that I really need to try out soon.